Tragic figures in Hardy

Returning to The Return of the Native, it's a pleasure to get back to a novel that's over-written (as so many 19th-century novels were) rather than under-written (as so many contemporary novels are). As I pick it up again, the hapless Clym is in a deep depression on the death of his mother - and the report from the young boy that her dying words were that she had been abandoned by her son. He is mortified that he never reconciled with her - and puzzled as to why she would think that he had turned her away. It takes a few chapters but, eventually, with some interrogation, he learns from the young boy that his mother did try to visit him and that Eustacia refused to let her in and - what's worse - that there was another man in the house. This leads to an extremely violent (verbally) encounter with Eustacia - she confesses more or less to the truth, even that Damon, her former lover, had stopped by to visit; we as readers know the encounter was (on her part anyway) innocent - but she made some very bad judgments, obviously. Clym cannot see this and will never see it - he will leave E. for sure. She is no doubt a tragic figure - confined in a world too small for her dreams and ambitions, and bringing her sorrowful fate upon herself by her own actions, some grand some foolish and petty. As noted in an earlier post, early on this novel looked as if it were heading toward a classic "comic" ending, with all of the characters paired with the one for whom they were destined, despite flaws and misperceptions (cf. Much Ado About Nothing, or Midsummer Night's Dream) - but anyone who's read Hardy know that this will not and is not the direction of the novel - as it's moved from potential comedy to tragic action: Hardy, along with Racine I guess, is one of the master's in post-classic literature of female tragic figures.